“Oh, you like those, do ya?” he said, lifting a platter and setting it in front of me. “Those are empanadas. Of course, here they call them ‘zorch latkes’ or something, I’m still working on the language to be honest. Effelox Universal they call it. It’s mainly grunting and orgasm noises.”

“Empanada,” I said, hoping the word would ring a bell. It didn’t.

“I figure if anything will get you remembering, it’s those. You hid the Chime in the refried beans! Can you believe that?” He laughed to himself. “They’re not actually beans I don’t think, but it’s what they got out here.”

“Who are you?” I asked, sniffing the empanada. “Chime?”

“I’m Patton, and you, for the millionth time, are an Earth man called Ben. You’re The Shopkeeper. You’re kind of a big deal around here.” He smiled and popped an empanada.

“Okay,” I said, biting into one of the hot, pillowy, halfmoons. “Mm, good.”

“Yes, good, Ben. We’ve been eating here for like two weeks, ever since we got you from the Silent Child. You lucked out, man. The Scythin just ditched you ‘cause you erased your brain. That was a solid move. Only choice you had.”

“Do I have amnesia?”

“Yeah, it may be a little more than that,” he said taking another bite and filling his cheek with food. “We’ll go through it all again. I think the repetition is helping. The axon diadem shows you at almost to one-tenth of a percent of coherence!” He patted the black ring sitting at the corner of the table.

“I don’t remember anything though.”

Patton considered the tray. “I’m glad I got thirty-two of these. This usually takes a while.”

“What does?”

“The whole story. I tell it to you every day, but I don’t mind. It’s epic! You and me, we got abducted. You got super addicted to nectar and we pooped through tubes. I killed a guy with one – it was justified though because he was trying to kill you.” Another bite. “Defense of another. Universal law.”

I stared at him.

“Sorry,” he said. “I get a little ahead of myself sometimes. I just want you to know what you did. For everyone. You saved the world. The Galaxy. Probably even more than that.”

I ate more of the empanada. It was good. I chewed and let my eyes wander. The “food court” filled the space of a sphere, with level upon level of places where an incredible variety of people – and other things – were eating and talking. I brought my eyes back for another bite just as a shiny robot thing walked up. Its head split open and there was a beautiful person inside with purplish skin. They looked at me judgingly, then turned to the man-guy, Patton. “Does he remember anything?”

I answered, “I remember my name because he just told me. It’s Ben.”